Apple - Press Info - Apple Presents iPod Apple Presents iPod Ultra-Portable MP3 Music Player Puts 1,000 Songs in Your Pocket CUPERTINO, California—October 23, 2001—Apple® today introduced iPod™, a breakthrough MP3 music player that packs up to 1,000 CD-quality songs into an ultra-portable, 6.5 ounce design that fits in your pocket. iPod combines a major advance in portable music device design with Apple’s legendary ease of use and Auto-Sync, which automatically downloads all your iTunes™ songs and playlists into your iPod, and keeps them up to date whenever you plug your iPod into your Mac®. “With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again.” Next Generation Player iPod represents the next generation of portable music players that store music on an internal hard drive, yet are only 20 percent of the volume of today’s hard drive-based players.

iPod stores up to 1,000 CD-quality songs on its super-thin 5 GB hard drive, and features up to 20 minutes of shock protection for nonstop playback when running, biking or other activities. iPod’s built-in FireWire® port lets you download an entire CD into iPod in under 10 seconds and 1,000 songs in less than 10 minutes—30 times faster than USB-based players. iPod plays up to 10 hours of continuous music, powered by its rechargeable lithium polymer battery, and recharges automatically whenever iPod is connected to a Mac, using power supplied over the FireWire cable. Every iPod comes with a compact, FireWire-based power adapter for traveling. iPod’s high-capacity 5GB hard drive doubles as a portable FireWire hard drive for storing presentations, large documents, graphic images and digital movies. iPod plays music in the popular MP3, MP3 VBR (variable bit rate), AIFF and WAV formats and can support MP3 bit rates up to 320-Kbps. Its upgradable firmware enables support of future audio formats.

For CD-quality sound, iPod is equipped with a high-output 60-mW amplifier that delivers 20 to 20,000 Hz frequency response for deep bass and crystal-clear highs. iPod’s earbud-style headphones are built with neodymium magnets for enhanced frequency response and high-fidelity sound. iPod also features a 160-by-128-pixel high-resolution display, with a white LED backlight to give clear visibility in daylight as well as low-light conditions. Legendary Ease of Use Apple has applied its legendary expertise in human interface engineering to make iPod the easiest to use digital device ever. Simply rotate iPod’s unique scroll-wheel with your thumb or finger to quickly access your entire music collection by playlists, artists or songs. The scroll-wheel makes it possible to hold and operate iPod with just one hand and features automatic acceleration when scrolling through long lists so you can find your music in seconds. iPod also features customizable settings such as shuffle, repeat, startup volume, sleep timer and menus in multiple languages including English, French, German and Japanese. iPod can display song data in any of these languages, enabling users to mix and match songs from all over the world.

Auto-Sync iPod’s revolutionary Auto-Sync feature makes it easy to get your entire music collection into iPod and update it whenever you connect iPod to your Mac. Simply plug your new iPod into your Mac with the supplied FireWire cable, and all of your iTunes songs and playlists are automatically downloaded into iPod at blazing FireWire speed. Then just unplug and go. Whenever you plug iPod back into your Mac it will be automatically updated with your latest iTunes songs and playlists, usually in seconds. There has never been a faster and easier way to always have your up-to-the-minute music and playlists with you wherever you go. Pricing & Availability iPod will be available beginning on Saturday, November 10, for a suggested retail price of $399 (US) from The Apple Store® ( ), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. An iTunes 2 CD, earbud-style headphones, FireWire cable, and FireWire-based power adapter are all included. iPod requires iTunes 2. Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh.

Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings. Press Contacts: How the iPod was born Apple AirPods review: Nope, they don't fall out The destiny of Apple changed drastically 10 years ago with the release of a deceptively simple digital music player. On October 23, 2001, Apple lifted the curtain on the very first iPod , which packed 5GB of music storage into a sleek white box no bigger than a deck of cards. Macworld’s Jonathan Seff, Rick LePage, and Jason Snell at the iPod unveiling. Apple chose to unveil its portable digital music player in a low-key special event held on Apple’s campus in Cupertino. The press and Apple fans alike met the iPod with severe skepticism. Pundits openly wondered what business Apple had selling consumer music gadgets. Many proclaimed doom (not the first or last time Apple’s future was called into question, mind you). By 2004, the iPod became a wildly successful product for Apple, and certain myths and legends sprung up about its creation.

When historians 100 years from now recall the legacy of Steve Jobs, they will no doubt mention the iPod in the same breath. But while Jobs had an integral role in the birth of the iPod, no one man created the device. A diverse team of Apple employees and contractors brought the iPod to life. A twinkle in Jobs’s eye Apple’s relationship with digital music started innocently enough, from seemingly unrelated events in 1999. That year, Steve Jobs discovered the latent potential of a long-dormant Apple-invented technology: FireWire. The serial bus standard enabled data to be transferred at alarming speeds compared to common standards of the time. Apple realized that with FireWire, Mac users could transfer videos shot with digital camcorders (which already used the standard) and edit them on their computers. The next round of iMacs, Steve Jobs decided, would contain FireWire ports. Apple approached creative app giant Adobe to author a simple, consumer-friendly movie editing application, but Adobe declined. That’s when Apple decided to create iMovie and feature the Mac as the center of a “digital hub” strategy, where the Mac served as the nucleus of an ever-expanding digital media universe.

By the late 1990s, digital music had become big news. Illegal file sharing site Napster, in particular, shoved the issue in everyone’s face. Despite the legal issues, it quickly became apparent to most in the tech industry that Internet-downloaded MP3s were the future of music distribution. Around 2000, Apple realized it had a large hole in its upcoming digital hub strategy when it came to music. To fill that hole, Apple bought the rights to SoundJam MP , a popular Mac MP3 player application, and hired three of its creators to work at Apple. One of these men, Jeff Robbin, would head development of an Apple-branded digital music application. Robbin’s team simplified SoundJam and added CD-burning features to create iTunes, released in January 2001. As iMovie had done with FireWire-attached camcorders, the iTunes team naturally sought to allow users to transfer songs from iTunes to the portable MP3 players of the day. They had trouble. The need for the iPod Behind every successful product lies a problem in search of a solution.

The inspirational problem, in the iPod’s case, involved the pitiful state of the young MP3 player market in the late 1990s. Portable MP3 players had been around since the mid 1990s, but Apple found that everyone on the market offered a lackluster user experience. Steve Jobs had a strong term for gadgets like that: “crap”. Everyone at Apple agreed. The original iPod, announced on October 23, 2001. Flash memory-based players of the era held only about a CD’s worth of songs. Hard drive players held far more but were relatively big, heavy, and they sported difficult-to-navigate user interfaces that did not scale well when scrolling through thousands of songs. Moreover, most portable media players (PMPs) used the pokey USB 1.1 standard to transfer music from a host computer to the player, which made the user wait up to five minutes to transfer a CD’s worth of songs. When moving thousands of songs, the transfer time could shoot up to several hours.

Considering the poor state of the PMP market, Jobs decided that Apple should attempt to create its own MP3 player, one that played well with iTunes and could potentially attract more customers to the Mac platform. He assigned Jon Rubinstein, then Apple’s senior VP of hardware, to the task. Rubinstein began preliminary research for ideas on how to proceed. From the beginning, he had two ingredients in mind: a speedy FireWire interface to solve the transfer problem, and a particular 1.8-inch 5GB hard drive from Toshiba that could make Apple’s music device smaller than any other hard drive-based player on the market. With most of Apple’s engineers tied up in Mac-related projects, Rubinstein sought help from outside the company to further determine the feasibility of an Apple music player. Through personal connections, Rubinstein heard about a man with the right qualifications and experience to do the job. He gave him a call in January 2001. Exploring the possibilities On that day in January, Tony Fadell happened to be riding on a ski lift when his phone rang. It was Jon Rubinstein calling. He invited Fadell to visit Apple to discuss a potential project, but he kept quiet about its exact nature.

Tony Fadell Rubinstein felt that Fadell made an ideal choice to explore Apple’s portable digital player options due to Fadell’s ample handheld computing experience. He had worked at General Magic (on an OS for PDAs called Magic Cap) and later at Philips Electronics, where he led the development of a Windows CE-based palmtop computer called the Nino. At Philips, Fadell had seen the potential of digital audio players through an encounter with Audible, an Internet audiobook vendor that wanted to bring its digital audio products to the Nino. Fadell considered himself a devoted music fan; he enjoyed deejaying events in his off hours, and he fantasized of a day when he didn’t have to drag his bulky collection of CDs between gigs. He began to wonder if Audible’s approach could be the solution to his problem and brainstormed ways that he could combine digital audio with music. Fadell explored the idea at Philips but found little interest in the ideas among management. After a brief stint at RealNetworks, Fadell left to form his own digital music company called Fuse Systems.

Fuse developed a digital jukebox that would rip CDs to an internal hard drive, but the company had trouble raising funding in a time when venture capitalists fetishized software over hardware. Fadell had received the call from Rubinstein just as Fuse ran out of money. Fadell went into initial talks with Apple in February 2001, thinking at first that Apple wanted to build a PDA. Soon, Apple offered Fadell a six-week contract as a hardware consultant. Just after signing, Rubinstein revealed Apple’s true intentions. “Apple thought that they could bring a better [MP3 player] to market and they asked for me to do some designs,” said Fadell in an interview with Macworld. “How could one be built, what kind of components, how much would it cost, and to do all the basic research and design for what was to become the iPod.” The Philips Nino, a Windows CE-based palmtop computer that Fadell helped develop prior to the iPod. Apple paired Fadell with Stan Ng, a veteran Apple product marketing manager, to help him mesh with the company’s unique culture.

During that six week period, Fadell met with almost everyone he knew in the handheld industry while keeping his true goals secret. He studied competitors’ products and settled on the need for a small, ultra-portable device with a large capacity and long battery life. Fadell brewed up three prototype designs for a potential Apple music player, each model crafted from foam core boards with rough interface graphics pasted on. Lead fishing weights gave each mock-up the approximate weight of a final device. “It was all very, very rough,” recalls Fadell. “I only had six weeks and it was only me really doing all the work.” When his contract expired in mid April 2001, Fadell presented his prototypes to Apple executives, including Steve Jobs, in an important meeting. Fadell purposely offered his two least promising mock-ups to Jobs first (one of which would have used flash memory, the other with removable storage) and hid the third under a decorative bamboo bowl Jobs kept on the conference room table. As Fadell predicted, Jobs liked the third mock-up best. During the same meeting, Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, presented mock-ups of a player featuring the now familiar scroll wheel.

Schiller personally thought of the idea as a solution to a troubling interface problem at the time. Other MP3 players used plus and minus buttons that would move, one item at a time, through a list of songs, which would grow tedious if the unit held a thousand songs—basically, you’d have to push the button a thousand times. With a wheel, a quick flick of the finger would navigate through the list at any rate the user wanted—especially since Apple would make the scroll speed accelerate the longer you spun the wheel. Steve Jobs liked the ideas he saw and offered Fadell a job at Apple to continue his work. After a period of uncertainty, Fadell joined Apple full-time in April 2001. The iPod project—then code-named “P-68”—had officially begun. Related: A History of the iPod: 2000 to 2004 | Low End Mac A History of the iPod: 2000 to 2004 Tom Hormby - 2013.08.10 More than any other product from Apple, the iPod has changed the company and the world.

Before its introduction, MP3 players were the realm of small companies with limited budgets that were unable to provide content. After the iPod, the entire industry evolved and grew to the point where the largest computer companies in the world have major interests in the digital music industry. Part 1: 2000-2004 The First iPod: 1,000 Songs in Your Pocket The 2nd Generation iPod: Adding Windows Support The 3rd Generation iPod: Apple Tries Buttons, Adds Dock Connector & USB The iPod mini: Introducing the Clickwheel The 4th Generation iPod The iPod photo: Beyond Black & White Part 2: 2005-present The iPod shuffle: Small and No Screen The iPod nano: Small with a Screen The video iPod: Beyond Still Images The 2nd Generation nano: Tougher The 2nd Generation shuffle: Tiny The iPhone: More than an iPod Smartphone iPod touch, classic, video nano, and more iPhone 3G: Twice as fast, half the price September 2008: iPod line overhauled iPod Innovation Tony Fadell , former employee of General Magic and Phillips, envisioned a brand new MP3 player.

Unlike the bulky flash memory-based MP3 players from Rio and other companies, Fadell wanted to deliver a small, hard drive-based player that was linked with a content delivery system where users could legally obtain and download music. The first company he pitched it to was RealNetworks in 2000, where the CEO, Rob Glaser, was already in control of a large content delivery system through Real’s premium radio and television channels. Real could not rationalize going through the trouble of releasing an accessory to their already profitable system, and Real would be caught off guard when the iTunes Music Store opened. Fadell also approached Phillips, which also rebuffed him. Fadell Comes to Apple Out of desperation, Fadell turned to Apple, which years before had sworn off consumer electronics after their unsuccessful Pippin and Newton. The executives at Apple were very enthusiastic about implementing Fadell’s plan at Apple – unbeknownst to Fadell, Apple had bought the rights to SoundJam MP months before. He was hired in early 2001 and was given a development team of around 30 people and a deadline of one year to release a successful product.

PortalPlayer Fadell was not confident that Apple would fund (or even complete) the development of custom hardware and software for the player, so he shopped around for an existing player to use as the basis of the Apple player. After briefly looking at Rio and Creative, the team found PortalPlayer, a new company that had not yet released a full product. PortalPlayer was assisting other companies to develop MP3 players based on common software. Before Apple approached them, their most promising customer was IBM, which was working on a black, flash memory-based player with a Bluetooth headphone system. The executives at PortalPlayer did not like the chances of IBM releasing a consumer MP3 player, so they jumped at Apple’s offer to design their player’s software exclusively. Several of the prototypes that PortalPlayer had been working on were delivered to Fadell’s group at Apple, and it became clear that the two had lots of work to do. For example, the players did not support playlists larger than ten songs, did not have equalizers, and had Byzantine interfaces. Perhaps worst of all, the player’s batteries lasted for less than three hours.

According to the liaison between Apple and PortalPlayer, Ben Knauss , “Most of the time building the iPod was spent finishing [PortalPlayer’s] product.” Steve Jobs took a very active role in the project, scheduling frequent meetings with the directors from Fadell’s group and PortalPlayer. During these meetings he would tell them in detail what issues he had with the device, whether it was the interface, sound quality, or the size of the scroll wheel. This was rare for an Apple project at the time, and it reassured the leaders in the group that the project would not be axed immediately. In the span of eight months, Fadell’s team and PortalPlayer dedicated all of their energies to finishing the iPod. In three months, Apple had created a preliminary version of the user interface and scroll wheel that would ship with the finished iPod. Apple never allowed anyone outside of the development team in Fadell’s group and select PortalPlayer employees to see a complete iPod. Whenever a device was being tested, it was encased in a shoebox-sized enclosure with the controls on different faces to keep outsiders from knowing the size and layout of the device.

The First iPod The finished iPods used a 5 GB Toshiba hard drive that was the size of a quarter, ARM processors (the same processors used in the Newton and Acorn), an operating system from Pixo , a large high resolution display, a lithium polymer battery, and the most recognizable aesthetic feature of the device, the scroll wheel. Unlike most other players, the iPod did not use controls that were better suited to the Sony Walkman in 1979 than a MP3 player with a capacity of thousands of songs. Instead of using skip buttons, users could spin a wheel on the front of the device to scroll through a list of songs to find the song they wanted to play. The same wheel was also used to control the menus of the system. As a result, it was much easier to navigate through the iPod’s playlist than the comparable Nomad or Compaq MP3 players. In early October, Apple began hyping the iPod’s release (which was still a secret from the press after eight months of development). The hype culminated in an announcement that Apple would make a major announcement on 2001.10.23, and that it was “not Mac”.

Rumors immediately flared up about a revitalized Newton or PVR, but no major site predicted that Apple would release an MP3 player. The iPod was announced to the world from a rented auditorium near Apple’s corporate campus in Cupertino. The audience – and the rest of the computer industry – was shocked by the product. No one grasped the importance of the device to Apple and the music industry in general until much later. Many reacted to the product with hostility, with criticisms that ranged from its US$399 price to the scroll wheel and its lack of Windows compatibility. A month later, the iPod was released in Europe to an enthusiastic reception. As more units sold, an entire ecosystem began to form around the device as new accessories and software products were released. A 10 GB version of the 1G (1st generation) iPod was introduced later. Going Windows The most popular iPod accessory was a utility that allowed users to sync an iPod’s playlists with a Windows PC. Apple took note and made the July 2002 version of the iPod – now with as much as 20 GB of storage space – compatible with Windows PC through MusicMatch . Apple also included PIM software on the iPod.

The original spinning scroll wheel was replaced by a solid state scroll wheel similar to a notebook’s touchpad. It continued to be surrounded by a ring of buttons, just like the 1G iPod. To the surprise of many, Apple started engraving iPods with text and even graphics. Several bands and companies licensed their logos to Apple, which engraved them on the back of the device. These new “special” iPods were available in time for the 2002 Christmas shopping season. The 3rd Generation & the iTunes Music Store Another hardware revision came in April 2003, bringing the iPod into its third generation. In a packed hall, Steve Jobs announced the new revision, which had no mechanical buttons. The function buttons were moved to just below the screen and were solid state, like the scroll wheel. The new version also sported a new dock connector that supported both FireWire and USB 2.0, making it easier for PC users to connect to their iPods, since few Windows PC had built-in FireWire ports. Capacities ranged from 10 GB up to 40 GB.

With the 3G iPod, Apple moved from the lithium polymer batteries found in 1G and 2G iPods to lithium-ion batteries, which would power all future iPods. The most important update to the iPod was not actually a hardware or software feature. It was the fulfillment of Tony Fadell’s goal of creating an entire business around the iPod. The iTunes Music Store (iTMS) was announced in the summer of 2003 and opened days later. Now, the iPod had a fully legal supply of content, making it easier for Apple to rationalize cutting the price of the iPod now that it had another revenues stream. This also marked the beginning of the end of Apple’s relationship with MusicMatch, which also launched its own music store. Tracks purchased from MusicMatch could not be played on an iPod. To the disappointment of many PC users, iTMS required iTunes, which was only available for Mac OS X until June of 2003. Then Apple released iTunes for the PC, allowing Windows users to access the iTMS. Along with the iTMS, Apple also bumped up the capacity of the iPod, without changing the design. All was not well for Apple and the iPod, though.

Many of the Sony batteries used in the original iPod were beginning to fail by autumn of 2003. A class action suit was brought against the company, and Apple eventually agreed to replace the iPod’s battery, even if it was out of warranty (though those customers had to pay a $99 fee). Smaller: iPod mini Rumors of a new version of the iPod flew as Toshiba announced that it had created a hard drive about half the size of the one used in the iPod. It was rumored that such an iPod would cost a little over $70 to make, making it possible to compete with high-end flash players that still dominated the market. During the January 2004 Macworld Expo keynote address, Jobs announced several revisions to the iPod line, all of them price breaks. During the last 15 minutes, he announced that there would be a new member of the iPod family, the iPod mini. The mini was based on a Hitachi drive the same size as the new Toshiba drive, and it had a capacity of 4 GB. In homage to the iMac, the mini was available in five different colors: blue, green, pink, silver, and gold.

Because of its size, the controls of the iPod had to be rearranged to fit on the mini. The function buttons were moved to the scroll wheel. The mini also had a smaller screen. At $249, the mini cost much less than many flash-based players available at the time, and it had a much higher capacity. Also at the Expo, Apple released a retouched 1984 ad that featured the runner wearing the signature white earbuds of the iPod. A second generation iPod mini was introduced in February 2005 with a new chipset, much longer battery life (18 hours vs. 8 hours), and a 6 GB version was added. The unpopular gold finish was discontinued. The 4th Generation iPod HP, which had sold several flash-based MP3 players under the Compaq brand in the late 1990s, wanted in on the iPod game. The behemoth (then the largest PC manufacturer in the world) did not want to invest in creating its own player or adopt Microsoft’s struggling format (later named Plays4Sure ) and reached an agreement with Apple to remarket the iPod under the HP brand and include iTunes on all consumer computers HP sold.

The agreement came to fruition in 2004 with the HP+iPod line. The HP branding got the iPod into many retailers that did not sell Apple products, such as Walmart. The iPod was a huge hit. Apple had sold millions of devices and was raking in money (although barely making a profit from iTMS). BMW outfitted all of its vehicles with an iPod interface that allows BMW owners to play their music over the BMW’s sound system and control their iPod via steering wheel controls. In mid-2004, Newsweek featured the iPod and Steve Jobs on the front cover. The article contained a short story on the history of the iPod and Apple’s announcement of the fourth generation iPod, which was slightly smaller than the third generation iPod and had the same clickwheel introduced with the iPod mini. The new version also meant a price drop across the board for all iPods (except the mini). The HP+iPod was also released in July 2004. Days later, RealNetwork’s Rob Glaser announced that his company had reverse engineered Apple’s FairPlay copy protection scheme and made Real’s Rhapsody music service compatible with the iPod. The new software was called Harmony, and Real made it available for immediate download.

Glaser complained that he had requested that Apple make the FairPlay specification available to other companies, but was refused, so he had no other choice. Apple reacted swiftly, issuing a software patch that prevented iPods from using Rhapsody songs and then threatening Real with legal action. Real backed down, but many in the industry were surprised by Apple’s “bully” approach. iPod photo In September 2004, two rumors emerged from Cupertino. The first revolved around Apple stockpiling small, color LCD panels. The entire industry speculated that Apple would release a PDA or video iPod. The second was based on quantity flash memory purchases Apple made in large capacities (the hard drive-based iPod used only 32 MB of flash memory). Both rumors proved somewhat correct – Apple released the color iPod photo in October, and the iPod shuffle followed in January 2005. The iPod photo was identical to an ordinary iPod, but it had a larger battery and more hard drive capacity in addition to a color display. The device did not play movies, but users could browse photo albums. It also showed album covers for songs while they played.

During 2005, the iPod photo name was dropped as all full-sized iPods gained color screens. These were the last iPods to support FireWire. iPod U2 Special Edition At the same date of the iPod photo launch, Apple released the iPod U2 Special Edition, a black & white iPod with a red clickwheel in a black case with the signatures of the band on the back. To mark the release of the new iPod, U2 did their first product endorsement, though the band was quick to point out that they received no money from the commercial. Apple continued to offer U2 Special Edition iPods from the black & white iPod era through the color iPod generation and into the video iPod period. This article was first published 2005.10.14 and has since been revised.

Further Reading Old iPods are selling for as much as $90,000 Old iPods are selling for as much as $90,000 63.8k By Rex Santus 2014-12-10 17:05:29 UTC Many lamented the demise of the iPod Classic , but it seems some people are willing to fork over tons of cash to get their hands on an old model. On eBay , a rare version of the iPod classic has sold for $90,000, according to the site. Another iPod on eBay had a list price of $180,000, though that seller seems to be having trouble finding a buyer. Meanwhile, a sealed first-generation iPod has sold for $20,000. See also: Requiem for an iPod Classic It's possible some of the exorbitant sales are fake, but there are a number of iPods listed on the site for four-figure prices. The $90,000 iPod — the highest seller — is a factory-sealed UK model of the special edition U2 iPod, originally sold in 2004.

The engraved autographs of U2's four members are on the fourth-generation iPod's back side. (This might seem a bit ironic to some, considering that many Apple users recently wanted to get this fall's new U2 album off their iOS devices.) "New" U2 iPods are going for about $4,000 on Amazon . And I own it. :) Don't think I'll let it go. RT @literallygod reminder that there was a U2 edition of the old iPod pic.twitter.com/4Q6okpyUB0 — Erin O'Brien (@ErinOmaha) November 23, 2014 The U2 iPod comes with 20GB of space and is rated for 12 hours of battery life (a battery that hasn't been used in a decade, however, will likely have serious performance issues, if it works at all). The iPod classic was discontinued in September, and Apple CEO Tim Cook said in October that the decision was made because the company "couldn't get the parts anymore, not anywhere on Earth." "The engineering work was massive, and the number of people who wanted it very small," Cook said at the WSJ.D Conference .

"I felt there were reasonable alternatives." Well, the "very small" number of people aching for an iPod classic are really aching for it. Non-U2 iPod classics are still selling for a healthy $500 or so on Amazon . The Evolution of the Apple iPod Oct. 23, 2001: The iPod The very first iPod launched with "1,000 songs in your pocket." It had 5GB of storage space, weighed 6.5 ounces, featured a 160 x 128 pixel display and FireWire connectivity and cost $399. July 2002: Second Generation iPod As well as an increased capacity topping out at 20GB, the second generation iPod got an important new feature -- Windows compatibility. This came not via iTunes, but through MUSICMATCH Jukebox, with software called "iPod for Windows." April 2003: Third Generation iPod 2003 was a big year for the Apple iPod. In April, the third generation model was introduced. Thinner and lighter, this complete redesign now boasted a touch-sensitive interface, dock connector and 30GB capacity.

USB syncing and the launch of the iTunes Music Store solidified the early iPod ecosystem. These elements helped Apple hit some milestones in 2003 -- one million iPods sold (which rose to two million by the end of the year) and 25 million iTunes downloads. January 2004: The iPod Mini Keen to capitalize on the iPod's mass-market appeal, Apple made a smart move in 2004 by launching the colorful iPod mini, which featured a new Click Wheel interface. Small, pocket-friendly and available in five colors, the mini appealed to a younger market that wanted to be seen with those hallmark white headphones. Priced at $249 at launch, the mini boasted roughly the same 1,000-song capacity as the original iPod. July 2004: Fourth Generation iPod The first fourth generation iPod wasn't a major step in the device's evolution. It got the mini's Click Wheel, an improved 12-hour battery life and an interesting new command called "Shuffle Songs." Pricing stayed fairly static: a 20GB model cost $299, and a 40GB cost $399.

October 2004: iPod U2 Special Edition In 2004 U2 and Apple's so-called "special relationship" bore fruit: the "iPod U2 Special Edition." A "new iPod U2 Special Edition," based on the fifth generation iPod, was also released in June 2006. October 2004: iPod Photo The second fourth generation iPod (yep, we're confused too) Apple introduced the "iPod Photo." With the ability to display photos on its color screen, and connect to a big screen TV for slideshow display, it commanded a premium $499 for the 40GB version and $599 for the 60GB. January 2005: iPod Shuffle New year, new iPod. The digital music player went cheaper than ever before with the launch of the screen-less, entry-level "shuffle," $99 for the 512MB model. Bundled with a lanyard, the shuffle was intriguing to joggers and gymers, as well as to those on a budget. February 2005: Second Generation iPod Mini Released in February, the second generation mini was a bit of a non-event.

With 4GB models at "the magic price point of $199," a 6GB version was also available for $249. The main thing the new mini got was a much better battery, as well as a fresh lick of paint and text that matched the body color. September 2005: iPod Nano Just a few months after updating the mini, Apple introduced the iPod nano. Available in black or white and super-slim thanks to flash memory, the nano boasted a color screen. 2GB and 4GB models hit the market for $199 and $249, respectively. A 1GB version was later announced in February 2006, priced at $149. September 2005: Harry Potter Digital Box Set Collector’s Edition 20GB iPod In September 2005 you could purchase a rare special edition iPod with the Hogwarts crest. The device was launched to mark the release of the Harry Potter digital audio books. October 2005: Fifth Generation iPod As iTunes expanded to include TV shows and music videos, Apple unleashed the fith generation iPod, capable of video playback and an improved and enlarged 2.5-inch screen.

September 2006: Second Generation iPod Shuffle The second generation iPod shuffle shrunk down, with an all-new aluminum design and clip, leading Apple to boast that it was "the most wearable iPod ever." At launch the next-gen shuffle was only available in silver, with a 1GB capacity, priced at $79. September 2006: Second Generation iPod Nano The nano got some love in 2006 with increased 8GB capacity, a 24-hour battery life and an aluminum, "smaller, thinner and lighter" design in five colors. September 2006: Fifth Gen iPod, Late 2006 In September 2006, the "new" iPod was to all intents and purposes the same as the fifth generation iPod released October 2005. New capacities -- 30GB at the "new low price" of $249 and 80GB for $349 -- made Apple hopeful for iPod holiday purchases. October 2006: iPod Nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition $10 from the sale of every (PRODUCT) RED nano was donated to a charity dedicated to helping people affected by AIDS in Africa.

January 2007: iPod Shuffle Realizing that people like color options, Apple made the shuffle available in blue, pink, green, orange and the original silver. September 2007: Third Generation iPod Nano The all-new "fatty" nano boasted a 2-inch QVGA screen, new colors and a smaller Click Wheel. Other improvements included an all-metal design, video playback and Cover Flow browsing. September 2007: iPod Touch Following the debut of the iPhone earlier in the year, Apple launched the first iPod touch in September 2007. Boasting the same multi-touch interface, built-in Wi-Fi, YouTube app and Safari browser, it instantly changed people's expectations of media players. The Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes apps were added via a January 2008 update -- the App Store wouldn't open until the following summer. September 2007: iPod Classic When the touch became the hero in the iPod product line-up, the original iPod became a "classic" in 2007.

September 2008: Fourth Generation iPod Nano The nano slimmed back down to its previous, taller design for the fourth gen iteration, and was dubbed the "thinnest iPod ever." Nine color options in an alumnium and glass finish, horizontal viewing and an accelerometer (which allowed the "shake to shuffle" function) differentiated the new "nano-chromatic" model. September 2008: Second Generation iPod Touch The second generation touch got a built-in speaker and, crucially, App Store access. Smaller, lighter and sleeker than the previous model, Jobs described the touch-take-two as the "funnest" iPod yet. March 2009: Third Generation iPod Shuffle Apple took an unusual step in 2009, getting rid of the shuffle's controls in favor of "VoiceOver" functionality. Sold as "the first music player that talks to you," the tiny 4GB third generation shuffle spoke song titles, artists and playlist names. In September 2009 Apple introduced a cheaper 2GB model for $59 and added four colors to the lineup.

September 2009: Fifth Generation iPod Nano When it revealed the nano, Apple announced that it had sold more than 100 million units to date. And the fifth generation nano offered more convergence than ever before, with a video camera, mic, speaker, FM radio and pedometer. September 2009: Third Generation iPod Touch On 09.09.09 the 8GB iPod touch received Voice Control, bundled remote earphones and a price tag of $199. September 2010: Fourth Generation iPod Shuffle Apple put the controls back on the body of the fourth gen shuffle, although VoiceOver stays on. In five colors, the start price was an affordable $49. September 2010: Sixth Generation iPod Nano In 2010 Apple borrowed multi-touch functionality from the iPod touch, as well as adopted the shuffle's clip for what was called "the biggest reinvention of the iPod nano since its debut in 2005." The small-scale, square MP3 player lost video playback, speakers and camera.

September 2010: Fourth Generation iPod Touch The fourth generation touch got Retina display, FaceTime video calling, HD video recording, an A4 chip, a 3-axis gyro and Game Center. Whew. October 2011: Sixth Generation iPod Nano, Late 2011 The latest nano update saw price shrink to $129. Other minor improvements include a slightly redesigned user interface, 16 new digital clock faces and better built-in fitness features. October 2011: Fourth Generation iPod Touch, Late 2011 Not a new model, but now with the iOS 5 update, the 2011 version of the iPod touch starts at $199. One other change: Apple offered the iPod touch in white -- just as it did the original iPod all the way back in 2001. September 2012: Fifth Generation iPod Touch Encased in anodized aluminum, and available in five colors, 2012's update boasted the thinnest touch ever. Specs included a 4-inch Retina display, a 5-megapixel camera with 1080p recording and the new A5 chip.

On the software side there was iOS 6, and iPod owners could now use Siri. September 2012: Seventh Generation iPod Nano The seventh gen nano reverted to a long form factor, complete with a 2.5-inch multi-touch display and a complete set of navigation buttons. Improvements included the return of video playback and new Bluetooth connectivity. May 2013: Sixth-ish Generation iPod Touch Released without much fanfare, the more affordable ($229) 2013 iteration of the iPod touch doesn't quite count as the sixth generation. At $70 less than the 32GB iPod touch, this 16GB edition is Apple's version of economy class. It does away with the iSight rear-facing camera and only comes in silver. Otherwise, the specs are the same, and it runs iOS7 just like its more expensive cohorts. 2014 and Beyond... Given that Tim Cook reportedly called the iPod a "declining business," we may have seen the last of Apple's new iPod offerings. Do you think iPods have a future? What functionality would you still like to see? Steve Jobs Announces the iPod SHARE + READ ARTICLE Gather ’round, kids. Gather ’round.

Old Uncle Doug is going to regale you with a tale of an excellent rectangle that was introduced to the world on October 23, 2001. Back in 2001, MP3 players weren’t scarce, by any means, but they each had a fundamental problem: They were either pocketable and could only hold a few dozen songs or they were comically big and could hold several hundred songs. I didn’t own the original iPod. It was too expensive (I didn’t have $400 to my name) and initially Mac-only (I didn’t have a Mac — a side-effect of not having money). I was, however, enamored with portable MP3 players. In fact, instead of buying several CD-, flash- and hard drive-based MP3 players at upwards of $200 a pop, as I did, I probably could have owned an iPod and maybe even a Mac. Here’s a photo of two real gems I still own: the Pocket mStation (left) and the NeoPlayer (right), with an old iPhone 4 thrown into the mix to give you a sense of size.

I’ll frame these someday: Doug Aamoth / TIME These two ridiculous beasts each used a 2.5-inch hard drive commonly used in laptops. So I could stuff a ton of songs on them, but I couldn’t stuff either of them into anything but the Hammer-est of Hammer pants. Apple / Getty Images The world needed an MP3 player that was small enough to fit in a pocket, yet had enough storage to hold hundreds of songs. The problem was that flash-based storage maxed out at mere megabytes and tiny, high-capacity hard drives didn’t exist in sufficient quantities…yet. This was a conundrum for Apple engineers in late 2000, as Steve Jobs had expressed interest in building a sleek, pocketable MP3 player that could hold a ton of music. In true Steve Jobs fashion, Jobs tasked Jon Rubinstein with building such a device even though the necessary components didn’t exist. Rubinstein lucked out, though. In February of 2001, while he was meeting with Toshiba, a boatload of tiny, high-capacity hard drives nearly fell in his lap.

The following is a passage in Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs book (page 384): At the end of a routine meeting with Toshiba, the engineers mentioned a new product they had in the lab that would be ready by that June. It was a tiny, 1.8-inch drive (the size of a silver dollar) that would hold five gigabytes of storage (about a thousand songs), and they were not sure what to do with it. When the Toshiba engineers showed it to Rubinstein, he knew immediately what it could be used for. A thousand songs in his pocket! Perfect. But he kept a poker face. Jobs was also in Japan, giving the keynote speech at the Tokyo Macworld conference. They met that night at the Hotel Okura, where Jobs was staying. “I know how to do it now,” Rubinstein told him. “All I need is a $10 million check.” Jobs immediately authorized it. So Rubinstein started negotiating with Toshiba to have exclusive rights to every one of the disks it could make, and he began to look around for someone who could lead the development team. The “exclusive rights to every one of the disks it could make” quip is important.

Apple rolled out the iPod in late 2001; it would take a while for competing MP3 players to shrink down and catch up. Further Reading:

Question: Oct 23 is the anniversary of the release of the first iPod from Apple. What year was it?
Answer: 2001